


Day #28: Something Old

by Accal1a



Series: December Nickels Insanity [28]
Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux, Sidewinder Series - Abigail Roux
Genre: Lost letters, M/M, Memories, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-07 14:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16855906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/pseuds/Accal1a
Summary: Kelly finds an old letter in a box and reminisces about its origin.





	Day #28: Something Old

Kelly stared at the boxes in front of him. 

It had been a stalemate for a very long time, but today he was determined he was going to get through at least one of them. The cardboard was _not_ going to beat him. Spring cleaning was going to happen, come hell or high water.

He accepted that he may have gone slightly insane anthropomorphising his clutter, but he was okay with that. It _did_ seem to have a mind of its own.

Several hours later, he was surrounded by small piles. 'Rubbish'; 'keepsakes'; and 'useful stuff that should be somewhere else in the cabin and why had it ended up in that box and didn't I buy another one of these, wait why are there _two_ of them in here?'

He was just about to collapse the cardboard box to keep it flat-packed should he need it again, when he noticed a sheet of paper that he'd missed. When he pulled it free, he started laughing even before he had fully looked at it.

~~~

 **Year: 1997 Location: Classified**

"We should send a Christmas Letter." Eli said one day, apropos of seemingly nothing.

Ty stopped with his fork half way to his lips. "We should do a _what_?"

"A Christmas letter, now that we're a permanent team. You know, 'these are all the things we've done this year. We're thinking of you guys. Merry Christmas.' Then you send it to all the people you know and make them feel jealous about your family. My mum did it every year."

"Easy," Owen said patiently, "we're Black Ops."

Eli shrugged. "We'll redact it." He said immediately, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

~~~ 

Kelly looked at the letter in his hands. It was indeed heavily redacted. Occasional words like 'the' and 'and' were still clearly there, the year, but not the date was at the top. The scrawled, "Love, us", with each man writing one of the letters so they were all part of the signature was clearly placed at the bottom of the page.

He could remember them writing it. They had written out actual words of what had happened on one piece of paper, aligned it beneath another blank page, and then coloured in the redaction bars to the precise length, filling in the allowed words as they went. As soon as they'd finished, they burnt the first page.

It was ridiculous, they could have just sent a short message, they could have faked the length of the blackened areas, but for some reason it seemed important that someone knew what they had been up to, even if that someone didn't _really_ know.

He knew that Digger's mother still had one of the letters framed in her house, much to Digger's pride. Ty's mother probably had hers in a box somewhere, and he knew that Owen would have kept one at his apartment after he cleared his Dad's when he went into a home. He didn't know if Nick had any of them, because they had never sent one home to Nick's family, and suddenly Kelly needed Nick to know what he'd discovered. Nick might not have a conventional family, but he did have a family nonetheless.

Kelly fumbled his phone out of his pocket and tapped his first speed dial. He was almost bouncing by the time it connected, and he knew his voice came across as excited when he spoke.

"You'll never guess what I just found."

**Author's Note:**

> Come and visit the [Cut & Run Discord Server](https://discord.gg/vvy6c76) and join us as we discuss/scream about this awesome series.


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